


Call Me Crazy

by scribblemyname



Category: Nashville (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Makeup Sex, Reconciliation, Songwriting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5139005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was anyone Scarlett was not expecting to see on her doorstep after everything that happened, it was Liam McGuinnis with a bag slung over his shoulder and a jetlagged look in his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call Me Crazy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mierke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/gifts).



If there was anyone Scarlett was not expecting to see on her doorstep after everything that had happened, it was Liam McGuinnis with a bag slung over his shoulder and a jetlagged look in his face.

"I heard about what happened," he said.

Her breakdown on stage in front of who knows how many people and subsequent withdrawal from touring, possibly everything. He didn't say more at first, and Scarlett stared at him long enough for the silent to stretch awkwardly. 

"You could have called," she said pointedly, drawing her shawl around her shoulders, arms crossed protectively over herself.

He shrugged, head tilt of indifference, slight smile on his face. "Well, I'm here."

She studied him for a long moment, then stepped back to allow him inside.

Liam dropped his bag where she pointed and looked around the living room as she watched him openly. It was their first time seeing each other since the whole 'we had fun' conversation, which still stung in ways she didn't want to look at too closely.

Finally, his gaze stopped on her, and he gestured toward her purse. "Was it the stuff I gave you?"

"I really don't want to talk about that."

It hadn't been Liam's fault, not that she felt like telling him that. He'd told her how many to take and she'd taken them more often because they helped, they were working, and she had _needed_ those songs bubbling out from inside her.

"Hey," his voice caught her out of her own head where she was sinking fast in unpleasant memory.

She looked at his earnest expression. He had one, beyond all the cocky arrogance and abrasiveness he put on to get under her skin and get things done. It came out every once in a while like a sun from behind a cloud.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She shook her head. She didn't want to talk about this either, any of it, not when she wasn't even sure if she believed him.

"I am."

"For what?" she asked abruptly. "For leaving?"

"I told you—"

"These things happen, right?" Scarlett held her chin up as she stared at him. "We had fun."

He stared back, frozen for a split instant, before he stepped forward and kissed her. He pulled back and she barely resisted slapping him.

"Liam—"

Seeing her reaction, he backtracked and came out with, "Rayna was done with me, and she writes the checks, okay? I thought it'd be better with me out of the picture."

The silence hung between them for a moment, tense and uncomfortable. Scarlett didn't want to hear that, didn't want to hear him being caring again or that Rayna had anything to do with it.

Then he was talking again. "I heard 'Falling.'" He took a step closer to her. "Was that about me?"

His hand came up to gently brush her waist, and there was that sincere question in his eyes. Maybe. She'd thought him sincere before. But he was close and everything was still raw under the surface, everything he'd brought up in her over their time together, and she shut her eyes against the image of his face and kissed him.

"Scarlett," he murmured, mouth moving down to her neck, her collarbone.

His hands ran warm up her back under her shirt, and she shrugged out of her shawl, then shirt and pulled him toward her room. 

He pressed her down gently into the bed and touched her with a softness she hadn't expected.

"Did you miss me?" she asked quietly against his skin before it went so far she couldn't take it back.

He looked at her openly and grinned. "Yeah."

* * *

Rayna underestimated Scarlett. She wasn't some shy, barely coping girl. She was an amazing, passionate woman who wanted more than she felt comfortable taking and expected more than Liam had been comfortable giving in a long time.

He'd missed this feeling, the taste of Scarlett's mouth, her warmth as she drew him in. He missed the way she looked at him with fragile, vulnerable eyes and he knew she had somehow managed to survive being that open and soft in a world of sharks and cutthroats. He could get drunk on her innocence. His house had been as empty as he'd ever told her, and Tokyo couldn't scrub her from his mind.

"I missed this," he told her, but she shook her head, all stubborn as ever, with a little noise of protest, before she silenced him with her mouth.

* * *

She wasn't really sure how she ended up here again, Liam's arms around her, his mouth on hers, but she gave as good as she got, and maybe "Falling" had been about him. She never could help falling too far in love, far too fast.

It felt good to hold him, good to have him touching her, running his hands worshipfully over her like he was playing piano on her nerve endings. She tugged on his hair and pulled his head to hers to breathe him in again like oxygen, and it was so, so good.

* * *

When Scarlett woke up, Liam was still there, dressed again and sitting a little ways away with a cup of coffee in one hand and a small notebook in the other, writing something. When he saw her blinking sleepily, he smiled at her and closed the book.

"You're awake."

"What's that?" she asked, sitting up in the tangle they'd made of the blankets.

He shrugged it off. "It's nothing."

She gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look. "Last time I said that, you stole my journal and locked the door behind you." She was glad he'd done it, but she still hadn't entirely forgiven him for digging into her most personal memories and thoughts without permission and forcing her to confront them.

He chuckled softly, shook his head, and handed the book over with a gesture of surrender.

Scarlett handled the book gently and flipped open to the page he'd been writing in, surprised a little at what she found there. "Is this about me?" she finally asked, bringing her head back up to meet his gaze.

"All the best ones are," he answered casually. "About someone you care about. Makeups and breakups. Love and loss. Isn't that country music?"

"You're a rock star," she pointed out. "Not country."

"Maybe you've reformed me."

"Not likely," she muttered and went back to reading. It would take more than a woman and a fling with a singer he was producing to change Liam, she thought. He was unapologetic about who he was and what he wanted, and he wanted her to be as unapologetic as he was.

She read the lyrics, broken pieces and lonely nights and words opening up hearts in ways you never expected. Somehwere in there, she started humming along to the soundtrack in her head and murmuring over the words aloud.

"Trying to set it to music already." Liam came over and settled on the bed beside her.

Scarlett blushed. "Not exactly, just..." She let her voice trail off and shrugged lightly. She lifted the notebook. "This is good."

"You think?" He leaned forward. "I thought I might try to write some of my own stuff again."

She was forcibly reminded of their night out together, when he'd confided in her that he'd missed finding his own voice. She noticed his glance slip to her mouth and back to her eyes. She leaned back.

Liam didn't miss much. He sighed and leaned back a hair himself. "You could come back to Tokyo with me."

She stared at him. She hadn't thought, hadn't even considered that he would suggest something like that. "I don't think... I shouldn't do something big like that right now."

"I thought you'd say that." Surprisingly, he managed to say it without making her feel insulted. "But why not? Live life. Do something different."

She stared at him for a long moment. She was trying to get her life to go back to normal, but she didn't think he'd want to hear that. It would wipe that hopeful, open expression off his face as he shut her out behind his walls once again.

"When do you have to get back?" she asked instead.

"I have a few days."

Well. A lot could happen in a few days. She smiled at him. "Might as well get breakfast first then."

* * *

The piano was well loved, worn from the touch of more than Scarlett's hands on the keys. She watched him run his hand over it with intense scrutiny over her cup of coffee after she'd put the dishes away.

Liam didn't pay as much attention as he probably should. He wanted to try something, so he sat down and watched her come a little closer to listen. He started slowly into the last melody he had been there with her to write. She opened her mouth slightly and shut it, then shook her head.

"Don't."

Without missing a beat, he switched to the notes she'd been humming over his notebook this morning. She listened for a moment, then settled on the bench beside him, taking the high part.

He started singing, making up the rest of the words on the fly as they played together, then played it through again, changing it until it felt right.

Finally, the notes faded away and she glanced up at him from under lashes, shy but not actually very sweet in that moment.

"My uncle's going to be back soon."

"Deacon Claybourne, right?"

She nodded simply.

Liam knew a polite dismissal when he heard one, but he wasn't really ready to let her go just yet, not again. Last time, it had been easier to walk away and everything in him was telling him not to do that again. He went for his bag and fished out his card.

"I'm staying at a hotel for the next two days." His number was on the card already. He added the room number and hotel name on a whim on the back and handed it to her. "Call me?"

Scarlett studied him for a long moment before she finally took the card, turning it over in her fingers. She stood up on her toes and leaned against him to pull him into another long kiss, and if she didn't call him after doing that, he was going to come back tomorrow because he was definitely not walking out of her life without a glance back after that.

They were broken apart by the sound of the door opening and Deacon's aborted greeting.

Scarlett blushed as she backed away. Liam offered his usual uncaring smile and a handshake.

"Deacon."

"Liam." Deacon shook, politely enough, but his entire face was screaming what are you doing here wtih Scarlett and get out.

"I was just heading out." Liam hefted his bag and headed out the way Deacon had come in.

* * *

"What was that?" Deacon shot Scarlett an incredulous look.

"Nothing," she replied flatly. "Just a friend checking up on me."

"That didn't look like a friend you were kissing."

Scarlett just sighed and went back to the piano for her coffee. "It was nothing."

* * *

She turned over melodies in her head that night and Liam's business card in her fingers, hearing that softness to his voice again when he said, "Call me." Liam wasn't much for softness but there were those moments, that 'little bit of sadness' around his eyes, even when he smiled.

She got up, got dressed, and slipped out without telling Deacon where she was going.

She didn't know what she expected when she got there. She just made herself go, knock on the door, and wait for him to open it, hair tousled a bit from running his hand through it and leaning against the doorframe with that surprised smile turning into his usual knowingness.

"Scarlett."

"Can I come in?" she asked, chin up, no backing down.

He shoved the door open wide and let her walk inside.


End file.
